The Guardian
by Moonfire
Summary: Freddy encounters a new challenge in the form of a woman who has found a way to get to the higher astral levels. He finally meets his match.


The Guardian

Sleep. That was one thing I no longer needed in Purgatory. Not that I got much when I was alive. The kids kept me too busy for that. Heh. I guess I am a father of sorts. I keep 'em in line, alright...the ones that are left.

The days of vengence were long gone. New victims, fresh blood, that was what I craved now. My little blonde rugrats made sure that all visitors were greeted properly. I taught them from day one that you do talk to strangers. When the doorbell rings they go running. If they don't, I send them in for a little time out in their room.

That room can get very hot. Hot enough to melt a plastic doll's head, or a little girl's curls.

A familiar sound made me stand up to stare out the window. Ah, they were singing the Song again. We had a guest! Who was stupid enough to fall in the trap this time? I growled low in my throat when I saw it was a woman. What was some bitch doing here? Comin' to see ol' Freddy, are ya darlin? Or try to rescue the brats? Not bad looking for roadkill. I laughed. I hadn't had fun with an adult for a long time. I drew the perfect disguise for the house from her mind and stepped out. It was time for a proper introduction.

I didn't know how I ended up at the house, but I was used to getting lost in the dreamscapes. In the old days they would have called me a shaman, or a walker between the worlds. From childhood I'd had a gift for getting past the meanderings of my subconscious and reaching the higher astral realms. I'd met some pretty interesting critters there, some good, some not. I'd learned how to create a gate between the lower etheric plane, where one was most vulnerable to evil, and the higher dreamscapes where that evil could not enter. In my case, that gate was a pale blue mosaic wall in a big basement bedroom of an old mansion. The wall had a picture of a man and woman holding up a red ruby stone. The figures represented the male/female aspects in myself, the blue around them was a symbol of water and purity. But the ruby was the key that unlocked the door into the etheric, where nightmares, ghosts and the downside of Purgatory were. The ruby was from the fountain of souls in the fifth Faerie city of gems. It was a piece of my soul, and my power. I had it set into a ring on my finger. If I ran into any trouble in the bad side of town, all I had to do was think myself back to basecamp and put the stone back on the wall. It had always worked...until today.

The first thing I noticed when I walked up to the seemingly beautiful house on the seemingly sunny street was that the ruby was missing. Then I heard the singing, and saw the little blonde girls playing hopscotch. To my horror they were using my ruby as a marker!

"Little girl, that's not a toy!" I gasped, running up to grab it off the roughly sketched boxes. She just giggled, ordinarily a cute sound, but in this case it was creepy. I noticed with increasing unease that there was a disturbing picture of a crazed man in a hat drawn in the box where the ruby had settled. As I went to cup my hand around it, five steel knives attached to a worn leather glove pushed up through the cement to slap over my hand. Stabbing pain shot through my skin as my blood turned to fire over the slashed knuckles. I pulled away and jumped up. The girls had disappeared. The house had been replaced by a delapitated structure that was pure wrecking ball material. There were enough weeds around it to film a western.

A quiet, but menacing laugh sounded from what seemed like all around me as the chalk figure sprang to life, two dimensional lines standing upright and undulating like multicolored electricity. The figure filled in and became a three dimensional, horrifying figure of a man...if he could be called that. In this state I didn't know who he was, but he looked eerily familiar.

He tipped his hat in a gesture of mock gallantry. "Freddy, at your disservice." he greeted me in a gruff hiss through crooked teeth. Teeth that not even the hardiest dentist would want to work on.

"That's one helluva handshake you have!" I said, holding my injured hand and concentrating on its healing. It was something I'd learned in the many years in dealing with brutes like him. I hadn't perfected it yet though. It still stung like hell and there were scars. I looked down at where the ruby had been, but to my panic, it was gone.

"Looking for this, darlin'?"

I immediately ascertained that this was a guy who would be a waste of time talking to. I reached out my hand to try to retract it telekinetically, but it didn't work. Freddy only drew it back to his chest possessively and said, "Oo! Finders keepers!"

Dammit! Why were my powers so weak here? I had a feeling wrestling him to the ground wouldn't do much good, or any other physical attempts to get the stone back. It was time to get back to the other side and bring in some reinforcements. I pulled a bluff.

"Hey, you can keep it." I said. "It's just a silly rock. Nice meeting you..." I finished sarcastically before concentrating on flying back to my point of orgin. At least I could still do that. I knew he'd follow, but I figured I could beat him back and somehow seal the gate before he got in. I was wrong. I was very, very wrong.

I just looked at the bitch. Did she think I was stupid? Me? The dreamstalker? If she thought getting away from me would be that easy, she had another thing coming. I had to admit the flying thing was creative. But I would find her. I always found my prey.

Before I caught up to her, I felt her. Her fear and desperation were like an aphrodisiac to me. It was something I could literally smell, see and hear. Now there was only taste left to make the buffet complete. Hers was unusually exquisite and unique, her fears trailing behind her like a veil. Now that she was defenseless, I had the upper hand. Or upper claw, rather. I hadn't felt hunger this strong since the old days. She was an enticing one, and strong, despite her fear. Oh yes, she would be an exiting conquest...

I found myself in an unfamiliar underground room where I somehow knew there were stairs at the end, if I could just reach them. But the fear I felt was so strong I had to struggle to take one step at a time. It was nothing I could see, but the presence was so evil that it threatened to envelop me like a sentient, swirling cloud. Or a black hole. With sheer willpower, I dragged myself across the wide expanse of the pitch black room and got to the bottom of the narrow, wooden steps. They seemed to go up forever to a door where a stamp-sized patch of light shone through feebly. I knew it was my way out. I'd only gotten a few steps up when a piercing pain shot through my side, and I looked down to see a long sword stuck through from one side to the other. Blood was gushing down my leg and I don't know how I stayed standing up, or kept from fainting. That damn quiet laugh sounded from beside me again.

"Was it good for you?" he made a lame attempt at perverse humor.

Shaking and groaning, and not with pleasure, I painfully pulled the sword from my side and threw it down. I never heard it land. "I bet you say that to all the girls." I said it humorlessly.

Fred stood up, placed the ruby on his tongue, then swallowed it. "You didn't stay for dinner." he mocked me. He started licking the blood from the side of my leg, working up higher until he reached my inner thigh. "White meat, my favorite." he added. I kicked his head away and started running up the stairs. It seemed the higher I climbed, the stronger I became. I heard Freddy roaring his frustration behind me but I kept going. The stairs morphed into a shorter flight and I knew I was gaining the upper ground. The next thing I knew, I was in the tunnel that led to the gate to the house. I flew through it into the room, which was in disarray. Clothes and personal belongings were strewn everywhere, the giant poster bed a mess. I didn't remember leaving it that way, but couldn't stop to analyze it now. I had to get to the top where my friends were, and warn them. I couldn't seal the gate without their help.

Just before I got out the door to the room, I heard a "ScrEEEEEEEEEEE!" along the stone tunnel walls. Seconds later, a billowing black ghostlike shape flew through the wall and I knew I was royally screwed. I ran up the multiple flights of steps that led to the upper levels and found several of said friends going about their domestic business. We'd been roommates, so to speak, for a while. The two I felt closest to were Nancy and Alice. Alice had told me about setting the souls free from Freddy in a church. Nancy had stayed free from him for what seemed to be permanently until a final confrontation killed her. I had given them sanctuary here and taught them how to put up barriers against the bastard. Besides, we had friends in high places. But even they were little use now without the ruby in its proper place in the wall to keep him out. There was only one thing to do.

"Morpheus!" I called for the Dream King.

His appearance was instantaneous. "I am here." his deep, hypnotic voice sounded as his form filled in.

"We have a little problem." I pointed to Freddy, who had appeared in a small TV set on the counter, pretending to be a newsman announcing the forecast of our respective ass kickings.

"Oh." Dream smiled wanly. Without another word, he had willed Freddy out of the TV to stand in front of him. Then he spoke. "I believe you have something of theirs." he said calmly, too calmly to the scowling stalker.

"Cough it up, Fred!" I demanded. Fred just flipped me off, then imitated the magician's cliché of producing the stone from behind one of his scarred ears. But then instead of handing it over to me, he flipped it to bounce all around the room. Morpheus smacked his forehead and disappeared, and Fred laughed.

"Keepaway!" he yelled gleefully, catching it before any of us could. "Now, where were we?"

I hadn't been expecting a mob to come after me, but least of all, some of my old victims! How had that bitch kept them safe here for so long? It seemed I had underestimated her. I thought it would be a simple case of chasing her up to the surface to wake up only to drag her down later and keep her there for good. But no. She had to go and make it all complicated. She had escaped into a higher plane. How unexpected. Now this was a real BITCH! My powers were weaker here because of all the airy fairies around, protecting them. But Fred never stays down for long. I was through playing marbles with this ruby thing. Now all I had to do was put it in that wall and I'd have control over THIS realm too. What could possibly stop me now?

A noise. The doorbell again. "We'll continue this little discussion later." I said. That stupid bitch, whatever her name was, had been about to tie my tongue around my head while the others held me down. Time to greet the next guest. The more the merrier, especially when had TWO places to bring them now...

Fred opened the door to find the girls doing their usual routine, but no one was there. "Where are they?" He demanded. They looked at him innocently. "The GUEST?" He yelled more loudly. The girls just shrugged. "GO TO YOUR ROOM!" The girls scattered.

Back at the mansion, I was putting the stone back into its place on the wall. I'd created an illusion so Fred thought it was me wrestling him down with the stone still in his hand but my real self had caught it moments before and pocketed it. As I was standing back, listening for signs that all was well, one of the little blonde girls appeared to me, winked, and was gone. I smiled. 


End file.
